The Building Tradesman Newspaper

Friday, January 06, 2017

By Marty Mulcahy, Editor

By Marty
Mulcahy

Editor

LANSING
- As it has been for the past six years of total Republican control in our
state's capitol, the state of organized labor in Michigan is, in many ways, a
continual loop of whistling past the graveyard.

Here's
the good news: working people and organized labor eased relatively unscathed
through the Lame Duck state Legislature's session at the end of 2016.

And
the bad news: "The incoming caucus is going to be even more conservative
than the caucus that we see here in Lansing right now for this term," said
Tom Leonard (R-DeWitt Twp.) late last
year as the lame duck session came to a close. Leonard will be speaker of the
Michigan House next year.

"As
it is, labor fared pretty well in the Lame Duck," said Patrick
"Shorty" Gleason, legislative director of the Michigan Building and
Construction Trades Council. "In 2017, the challenge continues for us to
find lawmakers who will vote with us on our issues."

More
good news: repeal of the state's Prevailing Wage Act is apparently not atop the
incoming speaker's legislative agenda, as it was over the course of the past
two years for Republican leadership in Lansing. While that certainly doesn't
mean the repeal issue won't come up in the new term, Leonard told Crain's Detroit Business that his top
three agenda items are fixing the "broken" teacher pension system,
instituting early interventions for mental health, and improving access to the
skilled trades.

Looking
forward and backward, following are some updates on worker-related legislative
issues:

*Much
to the delight of the building trades, a new blueprint was approved for
Michigan's energy industry at the end of the Lame Duck sesson (see related
article).

*Two
anti-union bills that would make it more difficult for workers and unions to
picket - and easier for employers to hire worker replacements - did not advance
in the state Senate at the end of last year. House Bills 4643 and 4630 were
adopted in the House. One bill would have increased fines against individual
picketers to $1,000 per person per day, and $10,000 for an organization, if the
picket is deemed to be illegal. The bill was adopted mostly along party lines,
with Democrats saying it is a solution in search of a problem with so few
examples of illegal picketing.

Look
for the legislation to be taken up again this year.

*The
state Legislature backed off on reforming pension plans for teachers, police
officers and firefighters - with "reforms" meaning moving new hires
into 401k plans. With the low pay in all of those professions, the benefits of
a formal pension is one of the few carrots workers have to go into those lines
of work. Republicans are hot on the heels of taking away those pensions,
especially for teachers, because of what they claim are the associated high
costs.

But
Gov. Rick Snyder put the brakes on their plans last year, pointing out that
ending or converting the pensions would actually cost local communities and
school districts billions of dollars. As Leonard said, the issue will be
resurrected this year.

*Tens
of thousands of unemployed Michigan residents attempted to defraud the state by
filing bogus unemployment insurance claims? Uh, no. Those claims of worker
fraud were determined by a new state computer program used for two years
beginning in October 2013 - but it turns out the computer program itself made
false assumptions, on 93.5 percent of the cases. And, the incorrect penalties
it assessed not only took money from innocent jobless workers, it pumped a huge
surplus into the state's Unemployment Insurance Fund.

Republican
lawmakers "tapped that money to fill the budget hole created by years of
tax giveaways to corporations in our state," says Electablog. A bill
signed by Gov. Snyder in the Lame Duck session "transfers $10 million in
'surplus' unemployment insurance funds to help balance the state budget at the
same time thousands of Michigan residents are claiming millions of dollars in
benefits and penalties were unlawfully taken from them after the state wrongly
accused them of unemployment insurance fraud."

A
class action lawsuit is seeking to recover funds for those jilted by the
jobless insurance collection.